Thursday, December 29, 2011

Getting It

Olivia’s class is working on rhyming these days. They’ve actually been working on it for the past month.

When Alyssa was three-ish, she and I would be driving down home or to my mom’s and we’d play a game. One of us would say, “Duck and luck, we rhyme.”

Then the other would come back with, “Car and star, we rhyme.”

She got it pretty quickly.

Olivia? It’s taken her a little longer. We’ve been doing the ‘we rhyme’ game with her ever since her teacher let us know they were working on rhyming.

At first, I’d say, “Mouse and house, we rhyme.” And Olivia would respond with, “Puke.”

And then, she got a little more creative. I’d say, “Love and dove, we rhyme.” She’d say, “Puke and poop, we rhyme.”

See, she was getting the cadence of the whole thing but not quite the rhyming part of it.

Then…about a week ago, I said to her, “Honey and bunny, we rhyme.”

She replied, “Comb and phone, we rhyme.”

She’s almost there! I clapped and praised her. Who cares if the endings weren’t quite right? It was close enough for this mama.

Last night at dinner I said, “Plate and late, we rhyme.”

She grinned at me and said, “Cat and hat, we rhyme.”

Then, as if to prove to me that that one wasn’t just a fluke, she went on to say, “Fish and dish, we rhyme.”

She’s getting it! My girl gets what it means for words to rhyme. Seriously, how cool is that?

She so desperately wants to read these days. She’s almost constantly bringing me something and asking me what it says. I will get down on her level, point to the words as I’m reading them to her and then have her tell me back what they say.

One of my new year’s resolutions this year is to read to Olivia more. I haven’t been doing that nearly enough in the past year and so my goal is to read to hear at least four times a week. She deserves the stimulation and we need that time together. I’m thinking it’s a better resolution that the usual of lose weight or exercise more. I like that it’s not so much about me.

I have another resolution, this one also not about me so much but that’s for another post entirely. For now, I’m going to bask in the fact that my girl can rhyme with the best of them.

1 comment:

McKinley {Haolepinos} said...

That is a really cute game to play!!! And all of Olivia's words make me think of Dr. Sucess {spell?} and I feel like she could be the next child author!!